Chagall Exhibit at Musée du Luxembourg

This Saturday we went to the Chagall exhibit at Musée du Luxembourg.  Pierre bought our tickets earlier in the week online, and we were very glad to be able to skip the hour long line.

 

 

We hopped off the metro and found that were in the right place.  My Acadian posed with our enthusiastic daughter and her pet.  Don't miss the sneak peak at French spring fashion in the background.

As we wandered through the 6th arrondissement, we came upon Saint Sulpice.

 

 This fountain is in a square in front of Saint Sulpice.  These lions were lunging and growling at me!

We came upon this Rimbaud poem Le Bateau Ivre (The Drunken Boat). A Dutch foundation, Tegen Beeld, specializes in painting poems on walls around the world and chose Le Bateau Ivre because Rimbaud wrote the poem in a nearby cafe. If you want to read the entire poem or its translation, or learn more about it go to  this website.

The lane with the Rimbaud poem ran right into the Musée du Luxembourg.  This museum was the first museum in France; it was opened to the public in 1750 and is located in the lovely Jardin du Luxembourg.

 

 The exhibit is titled: Chagall Between War and Peace

The exhibit pamphlet outlined his amazing life.  "Chagall died in 1985, at almost 100 years old.  He had crossed the twentieth century, lived through a revolution, two world wars and exile."  Marc Chagall was the youngest of six children in a Lithuanian Jewish family.  He was born in Vitebsk, Belarus, which was then part of the Russian Empire.

Chagall fell in love with Bella, a girl from Vitebsk and was engaged.  He went to Paris in 1910 to be an artist.  Before returning home, he had his first show in Berlin.  He returned to Vitebsk to marry Bella and the outbreak of WWI kept them from returning to Paris.  In 1923 he returned to Paris with Bella and their daughter Ida.

In 1937, Nazi authorities confiscated Chagall's paintings that were in Germany.  Chagall moved south of the Loire before fleeing to the United States.  "War, persecutions, exodus, and burning villages haunted his pictures: from then on a dark tonality invaded his paintings."  In New York Chagall met Pierre Matisse; son of Henri Matisse, who was a gallery owner.  He helped show and manage Chagall's art until the end of his life. 

 

Throughout 1944 Chagall waited anxiously for the liberation of Pairs, his adopted city where he wished to return.  But the sudden death of Bella sent him into an extended period of mourning.  Bella died of a common sickness that could have been easily cured, if medicine were not in short supply due to the war. 

Chagall returned for good to France in 1949 and settled in Southern France.   

He painted large murals for the Metropolitan Opera in NYC and the ceiling of the Opera Garnier in Paris.  I need to go on the tour to see the ceiling.

The museum provided a beautiful booklet for kids with lots of interesting  information about Chagall and fill in the blanks for throughout the exhibit.  The show was packed and the girls were happy to escape outdoor and spent a long playing at the Jardin du Luxembourg.